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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
28September/October 2015
haven’t even told their GP about the pro-
cedure, never mind their friends or
family. It’s considered impolite to bring
it up socially, and there’s a deafening
sound of silence at the top: when the
Journal.ie recently asked TDs if they
would personally favour repealing the
eighth amendment, most of them
declined to answer.
If we’re not talking about our own
abortion laws, the international com-
munity certainly is. Media giant Vice
recently established ‘Broadly’, a wom-
en’s interest channel. Its website
published a long and stringent feature
on Ireland’s abortion laws in August. Its
entirely verifiable claims that “bizarre
demonstrations involving sellotape as a
metaphor for the dangers of sexual
activity are permitted [in Irish schools],
but workshops to prevent homophobic
bullying are not” in effect make us look
ridiculous.
International coverage of the Ms Y
case makes us look inhumane. The Inde-
pendent in the UK wrote of Ms Y saying
she: “thought she’d finally reached
safety…[after she was] kidnapped and
forced into sexual slavery by the head of
a paramilitary organisation...she didn’t
know that her new home’s draconian
abortion laws were going to trap her
into having a baby she didn’t ask for,
and drive her to the point of suicide”.
Guardian columnist, Jessica Valenti,
has noted how “Ireland’s laws are tor-
turing women”, and Ireland is being
referenced in stories about Paraguay’s
recent case where a ten-year-old was
raped by her stepfather and had a forced
C-section: “It doesn’t just happen over
there”. In articles about Republican
misogyny in the upcoming US election
Ireland’s inhumane abortion laws get
another mention: “As Irish doctors did
in the tragic Savita Halapannavar case,
you could always let both [mother and
fetus] die”.
Many Irish people are unaware that to
seek an abortion in Ireland carries a
prison sentence of up to years. To put
that in context, if a woman is raped and
seeks an abortion, she could spend more
than twice as long in prison as her
attacker (rape sentences tend to be five
to seven years, according to the recently
defunded Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, or
nothing at all sometimes, even if you
confess). Perhaps one of the most con-
cerning things about this fourteen-year
sentence is that it isn’t a legacy from
previous generations – it was brought in
in .
Certainly in Iceland, they are aware.
At the end of August, the Icelandic
branch of Amnesty International staged
a protest, their members sitting in cages
in prison clothing with placards saying
W
HEN the gay marriage
referendum passed in
May, Ireland was hailed
internationally as being
“in the vanguard of
equality”.
To go from being barely liberal
enough to legalise divorce in ,
years after most other European coun-
tries, to becoming the first country in
the world to legalise gay marriage by
popular vote in manifested a huge
cultural change, and shows clearly that
the Ireland of the s was not the
Ireland most people want to live in
today. Shortly after the marriage refer-
endum, a progressive Transgender
Recognition Act was passed.
But despite progress on LGBT rights,
our abortion laws continue to attract
opprobrium internationally. Less than a
month after the Marriage Equality vic-
tory, we suffered the international
humiliation of being flagged by both the
United Nations and Amnesty Interna-
tional as being out of line with
international human rights standards.
We’re not good at talking about abor-
tion in Ireland. Alongside the march for
choice, the Abortion Rights Campaign
also organise an annual ‘Speak-Out’: a
space where women who have obtained
an abortion legally or illegally share
their experiences. Irish society’s failure
to engage in a realistic conversation
about abortion means a staunch anti-
abortion minority is given a platform,
from where they shame into silence the
tens of thousands of women who have
left Ireland to get abortions.
Women at our Speak-Out often
Ireland’s abortion laws in perspective. By Cathie Doherty
Through a global lens
POLITICS
September/October 2015 29
For abortion we find ourselves on a par
with many countries we like to consider
ourselves ahead of in social freedoms.
Such coverage isn’t dying down:
Savita Halappanavar’s unnecessary
death in hasn’t made it out of the
news three years later, and in the last
few weeks alone, ARC has been con-
tacted by journalists, politicians and
activists from France, Iceland, the US,
Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands,
Spain, and the Arabic network, Al
Jazeera, and more.
A delegation from the European Par-
liamentary Committee for Women’s
Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM
committee) has chosen to use one of
their European Parliamentary ‘Tur-
quoise weeks’ to visit Ireland, to discuss
the issues of women and austerity. This
visit comes after a vote from the FEMM
committee in June that supported a
report by MEP Maria Noichl which
highlighted the unequal effect of auster-
ity on women, and recommended
improved provision of services to single
parents and disabled women, a road-
map for LGBT people, and improved
access to assisted reproduction, abor-
tion, and sex education. This visit
gestures at the outstanding areas of
gender inequality written into law in
“Ireland change your abortion laws!”
The Ipsos/Mori poll in the Irish Times
last year records very strong majorities
in favour of abortion in the case of risk
to the women’s life (%), health (%),
fatal foetal abnormality (%), and rape
and abuse (%), and a small majority
(%) in the event or a threat of suicide.
% of Irish people want to expand the
grounds for legal abortion in Ireland,
while % of us favour complete
decriminalisation.
Only % believe abortion should
never be permitted.
Abortion became criminal in the
s, when Ireland was a very differ-
ent place, when fear of the church meant
we overwhelmingly did (and voted) as
we were instructed, regardless of our
own wishes.
In and in we came out to
the polls again, and motions to remove
the threat of suicide as legal grounds for
an abortion were defeated.
When Ireland’s abortion laws are dis-
cussed internationally it reflects badly
on all of us who live here. Articles aren’t
written along the lines of: “A Hindu
woman was killed in Ireland for a Catho-
lic law, which most Irish people don’t
support”. Rather the law not the popular
will is what is judged, internationally.
Ireland, and the need for a move from
conversation to action to improve the
lives of people in this country.
We have a rich and varied cultural
heritage and are one of the top countries
in Europe for educational standards,
according to the PISA tests. For a small
country, we punch above our weight on
so many levels, but our lack of progress
on abortion leads to horror stories.
The Abortion Rights Campaign’s
fourth annual March for Choice, this
year on the th September, is our
chance to show the international com-
munity that Irish people do not condone
the laws which have given us such bad
press, and to loudly call for progress.
The first March for Choice took place in
and has grown in numbers, year
upon year. This year we will be joined by
a multitude of international visitors on
the day. Our theme, “Choose your
future”, highlights ARC’s core value
- that every person should have the right
to make their own choices.
It also reflects the fact that this is our
last march before the next general elec-
tion – concentrating minds on making
informed electoral choices. •
Cathy Doherty is spokesperson for the
Abortion Rights Campaign
Bizarre dem-
onstrations
involving
sellotape as a
metaphor for
the dangers of
sexual activity
are permit-
ted [in Irish
schools], but
workshops to
prevent homo-
phobic bully-
ing are not
“
